This question—both in its general theoretical formulation from the standpoint of socialism and in its practical-organizational aspect (the construction of our own party)—urgently demands discussion and resolution by all social-democratic organizations.

The August Conference of the Liquidators in 1912—by the admission of even the neutral Menshevik Plekhanov—violated the RSDLP programme in the spirit of "adaptation of socialism to nationalism."

In fact, this conference, at the proposal of the Bundists, recognized the slogan of "cultural-national autonomy" as permissible, contrary to the decision of the Second Congress of the party.

This slogan (defended in Russia by all bourgeois parties of Jewish nationalism) contradicts the internationalism of social-democracy. As democrats, we are unconditionally hostile to any, however slight, oppression of any nationality, any privileges for any nationality whatsoever. We demand, as democrats, freedom of self-determination of nations in the political sense of the word (see the RSDLP programme), i.e., freedom of secession. We demand unconditional equality of all nations in the state and unconditional protection of the rights of every national minority. We demand broad self-government and autonomy of regions, which should be delineated, among other things, also according to national characteristics.

All these demands are obligatory for every consistent democrat, and all the more for a socialist.

But socialists do not limit themselves to general democratic demands. Socialists struggle against all and every, crude and refined, manifestations of bourgeois nationalism. The slogan of "national-cultural autonomy" is precisely such a manifestation, uniting the proletariat and bourgeoisie of one nation, dividing the proletariat of different nations.

Social-democrats have always stood and stand from the standpoint of internationalism. While protecting from the feudal lords and the police state the equal rights of all nationalities, we stand not for "national culture," but for an international culture, into which from each national culture enters only a part, namely: only the consistently democratic and socialist content of each national culture.

The slogan of "national-cultural autonomy" deceives the workers with the phantom of cultural unity of nations, whereas in reality in each nation today predominates the landlord's, bourgeois, or petty-bourgeois "culture."

We are against national culture—as one of the slogans of bourgeois nationalism. We are for the international culture of the democratic to the end and socialist proletariat.

Unity of workers of all nationalities with complete equality of nationalities and the most consistent democratism of the state—such is our slogan, as it is the slogan of all international revolutionary social-democracy. This truly proletarian slogan does not create false phantoms and illusions of "national" unity of proletariat and bourgeoisie, whereas the slogan of "national-cultural autonomy" unconditionally creates such a phantom and sows among the toilers such illusions.

We Latvian social-democrats, living in a region with an especially mixed national population, we, surrounded by representatives of bourgeois nationalism—Latvian, Russian, Estonian, German, etc.—we in particular see clearly the bourgeois falsity of the slogan of "cultural-national autonomy." We hold especially dear the practically tested slogan, already confirmed in our social-democratic organization, of unity of all and every organizations of workers of all nationalities.

The slogan of "national-cultural autonomy" is not infrequently justified by reference to Austria. Regarding this reference, one must bear in mind: first, that the viewpoint of the chief Austrian theoretician on the national question, Otto Bauer (in his book: *The National Question and Social-Democracy*) has been recognized even by so cautious a writer as K. Kautsky as an exaggeration of the national moment and a terrible underestimation of the international moment (see K. Kautsky: *Nationality and Internationality*[21]. There is a Russian translation); second, that among us only the Bundists, together with all bourgeois Jewish parties, have defended "cultural-national autonomy" to this day, whereas neither Bauer nor Kautsky recognize national autonomy for Jews, and Kautsky (ibid.) directly declares that the Jews of Eastern Europe (Galicia and Russia) are a caste, not a nation; third, that even the Brünn (1899) national programme of the Austrian social-democrats does not fully recognize extraterritorial (personal) national autonomy, reaching only to the demand for a union of all national regions of one nationality throughout the entire state (§ 3 of the Brünn programme); fourth, that even this obviously compromising (and unsatisfactory from the standpoint of internationalism) programme suffered complete fiasco in Austria itself, because the compromise brought not peace but led to the secession of Czech separatists; fifth, that these Czech separatists, condemned unanimously at the Copenhagen Congress by the entire International, declare their proximity to Bundist separatism (see *Der čechoslavische Sozialdemokrat* No. 3, the organ of separatists, which can be obtained free from Prague, Prag, Hybernska 7); sixth, that Bauer himself demands unity of political social-democratic organizations of different nationalities on the local level. Bauer himself considers the "national structure" of the Austrian party—which has now led it to complete schism—contradictory and unstable. In short, the reference to Austria speaks against the Bundists, not for them.

Unity from below, complete unity and fusion on the local level of workers' social-democrats of all nationalities in all workers' organizations—such is our slogan. Down with the bourgeois-deceptive and compromising slogan of "cultural-national autonomy"!

And in the structure of our party we are against federation, we are for unity of local (and not only central) organizations of social-democrats of all nations.

The Congress must reject both the slogan of cultural-national autonomy and the principle of federation in party construction. The Latvian social-democrats, like the Polish social-democrats, like the social-democrats of the Caucasus throughout the entire period 1898–1912 (for all fourteen years of the party's history) must remain faithful to social-democratic internationalism.

Written in May, before the 25th (June 7), 1913.

Published in August 1913 in Latvian in the newspaper *Cïnas Biedris* No. 4

First published in Russian in 1929 in the 2nd–3rd editions of the Works of V. I. Lenin, vol. XVII

Printed from the manuscript